A Little Night Murder Read online

  Dozens of foster kids had been seated at darling little tables decorated with pastel paper cups and plates. The guests were supposed to be genteelly passing cucumber sandwiches while listening to a local author read from her newly released children’s book. But the audience was far more interested in pulling apart their sandwiches and pouring their juice from cup to cup than in hearing about two shy frogs on a picnic. The parents watched nervously from the sidelines and tried to signal commands to their charges.

  The only parent who seemed above the fray was the regally tranquil woman I had met a few times at past events for foster kids—a cause in which I was becoming increasingly interested. My new acquaintance went by the name of Miss Patty, and I had learned she was the foster parent to fourteen children.

  Miss Patty waved to me, and I slipped into a seat beside her.

  “Nora,” she whispered, “you always look so pretty. Where do you get such fine clothes?”

  “I’m a big believer in hand-me-downs.”

  She chuckled. “You and me both. Do you have enough baby things for your little one?”

  Touched by her concern, I quickly reassured her. “My sister has bags and bags. She promises I won’t have to buy so much as a sock.”

  “Well, when you’re finished with those things, you know where to send ’em.”

  She caught me by surprise. “Miss Patty, do you mean you’re fostering babies again? I thought you were only taking older children now.”

  She wagged her head. “I know I am too old to take in babies, but they won’t stop sending me the ones that are hard to place.”

  “You’re never too old for babies, right?”

  “No.” She turned serious. “I have to think about my longevity now. I take vitamins and go for walks in the park. There are a lot of children who need homes.”

  The beleaguered author looked up from her book and frowned in our direction, so I gave Miss Patty’s hand a commiserating squeeze.

  The short conversation about leaving children behind got me thinking about Jenny Tuttle and David Kaminsky. If he really was her son, how had she gone about giving him up? Had she found a home for him herself? Or simply surrendered him to a lawyer? And if so, who was the boy’s father? Had he factored into her decision at all? Had the decision to give up the child been mutual? Or Jenny’s alone?

  A shriek from one of the children’s tables drew my attention. The tea party was fast degenerating into a brawl, so I got up and found the event committee chair, an acquaintance whose husband owned many lucrative fast-food franchises. She was a pretty blonde who had started out flipping burgers in one of his drive-in joints because she needed to support her orphaned younger siblings. She’d married the boss and now devoted her time and considerable money to children’s charities. I conducted a whispered interview before requesting permission to take photos. I snapped pictures of the decorations and several of Miss Patty’s kids before calling it quits.

  I noted the time and hit the street. In a hurry, I threaded my way through the hot, Friday rush-hour pedestrian crush toward my next event. On the way, I phoned Gus, but he didn’t pick up. I left a message to tell him where I’d be for the next half hour or so.

  At a popular Pine Street restaurant best known as an LGBT hotspot, I arrived with the first rush of guests, which gave me only a few minutes to talk with the chairperson as she helped string a banner in front of the hostess station at the last minute.

  “Hi, Nora! You look great! When are you due?”

  “In a few weeks,” I reported, with a smile. I mopped sweat from my forehead with a cocktail napkin. “How’s the party shaping up, Elle?”

  Elle Maslowski and her mother had cofounded the unfortunately named Center for Women’s Pelvic Health after both of them struggled with cervical cancer. Elle’s mother had since passed away, but Elle—back at her job at an advertising firm—was still fighting for a cure. To prove her worth to the local organization, she was hosting several small events leading up to a big annual fund-raiser. Judging by my previous experiences with Elle’s party throwing, the restaurant would soon be filled with dozens of young career women with checkbooks in hand and ready to pose for their close-ups. With her masterful networking skills, Elle had the makings of a major philanthropist for the future.

  I got the party lowdown from Elle and took photos of her with the first few women who arrived. I sent the pictures to my online editor for immediate posting, and within a few minutes everyone at the event seemed to be sharing photos on their cell phones. Over the heads of guests, Elle happily shouted that even more people were showing up just because of my coverage. I suspected she was encouraging me, not really telling the truth, but it was a nice compliment.

  Someone turned up the music and the big doors to the sidewalk were rolled up to let the afternoon sunshine pour in. With it came the heat. Elle’s banner fluttered in the hot breeze—a cartoon drawing of a uterus dancing alongside the words CENTER FOR WOMEN’S PELVIC HEALTH.

  Everyone was beautifully dressed in a rainbow of pastel colors—showing off plenty of well-maintained skin and admiring each other’s high, sexy shoes. Women might dress nicely for the men in their lives, but they really pulled the best from their closets when seeing other women.

  Elle circled back from greeting more newcomers. “For real, how’s pregnancy?”

  “For real, it’s pretty great, thanks. How are you doing these days?”

  She knew what I meant and tried to keep her smile in place. Her eyes turned glassy, though. “I’m okay. Losing Mom was hard. A friend told me that when your mom dies, you have to start being a grown-up all by yourself. These days I am thinking a lot about the kind of woman I really want to be.”

  I gave her a hug. “Your mom would be proud of what you’re doing today.”

  We were interrupted by the arrival of more guests. Soon I felt rather than heard my cell phone go off, so I excused myself to answer the call. I expected to hear Gus’s shout when I picked up, but instead it was Michael’s voice on the phone.

  “Everything okay?” I asked him when I found a spot on the hot sidewalk where the music wasn’t blaring.

  “We’re great,” he said cheerfully. “We stopped at the garage for a while. I think Noah’s going to be a Corvette man.”

  Smiling, I could imagine Michael, Noah in his arm, at his garage with the usual dubious roughneck employees who hung out there. “Will you be teaching our daughters about car maintenance, too?”

  “You bet. How’s the murder investigation going?”

  “I’m thinking of murdering my sister Libby. Does that count?”

  “What’s she done now?”

  “She thinks she’s falling in love with Ox Oxenfeld.”

  “That won’t last,” Michael predicted. “The bug man’s head over heels for her.”

  “But he’s broke, and she has tuition bills—not to mention cheesecake—on her mind.” Fearing the purpose of Michael’s call, I asked, “Have you heard from Hart Jones?”

  “Nope,” Michael said. “Jones doesn’t have the guts to call me. You?”

  “No.”

  “Then I guess we’ll be keeping Noah for a while. Listen, I just wanted you to notice what time it is.”

  I checked my watch. “Almost six.”

  “Yeah. One week from now, we’re going to be walking into the judge’s office together. You and me, getting married.”

  My heart swelled, and I laughed, delighted that he’d thought to call me at this very moment. He sounded very happy.

  “I’ll be there,” I promised. “That’s a wedding I won’t miss.”

  He said he loved me and hung up. Still smiling, I turned around and almost bumped into Gus Hardwicke.

  He’d heard what I’d said on the phone. Sharply, he asked, “Whose wedding?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I could have made up a lie. But wit
h the heat, the noise of the party and the swirl of young women around us, not to mention the dancing uterus and Baby Girl suddenly giving my bladder a kick, the whole sensory kaleidoscope made my brain short-circuit and I said simply, “Mine.”

  A storm crossed Gus’s face, and then he blinked. A heartbeat later he grabbed my arm and pulled me into the bar. There, along the wall, he found two empty seats in the far corner. He pointed at one of the stools and said, “Sit.”

  The swivel stool looked high and precarious. “I don’t think I can climb up there.”

  He helped me up and waited while I steadied myself before sitting next to me. He said, “You’re marrying your thug? When?”

  “I’m not telling you.”

  “You can’t do it.”

  “Gus, I’ve had a lot of time to consider this step. Believe me, I know all the pros and cons. But Michael and I want a family together more than anything. Now that it’s actually happening, we’re getting married.”

  “It doesn’t matter to you that your rug rat will be born into the mob? That someday it might be in danger from—”

  “If anyone can protect us, it’s Michael.”

  “You’re not a fool,” Gus began, “but there are circumstances to consider. Nora, I—”

  “Is this the personal matter you wanted to discuss? My wedding? Because I’d rather talk about Jenny Tuttle’s son.”

  Gus’s expression changed, and he sat up, all attention. The bartender noticed and came over. Gus ordered himself a scotch, and I asked for a tonic and cranberry juice. When the bartender went away, Gus said, “Tell me everything.”

  I reported that David Kaminsky and his mom believed David might be Jenny Tuttle’s son. The adoption bulletin delighted Gus. “Just as I hoped! But the Kaminsky kid doesn’t know for sure?”

  “Not yet. He’s not a kid, either. He’s a teacher, remember? He’s going to check with his adoption lawyer and get back to me.”

  “Who’s his father?”

  “David hopes to find out when he talks to the lawyer.”

  “This changes the story very nicely, doesn’t it?” Pleased, Gus rubbed his palms together. “We have the beginning of a summer saga, see? Readers will love it!”

  “We don’t have any solid information yet,” I cautioned. “It will be Monday until David can see his lawyer, and surely it will take a few more days before we’ll be able to confirm—”

  “The hell with that. Did you take his photo? An updated picture, that is, not the kiddie version. One we can run in the morning?”

  I was starting to feel railroaded again. “Aren’t you listening? There’s no new information.”

  “Of course there is. We’ve got a cliffhanger for the murder story, and we’ll have readers running to buy the paper every day to hear if he’s really the Tuttle heir or not.”

  “He’s not interested in the Tuttle money. Well,” I corrected myself, “at least that wasn’t his first thought. He’s delighted to think he might be related to Toodles. It’s the music that thrilled him.”

  Gus snorted. “Then either he’s a total wanker, or you don’t recognize when you’re being conned.”

  The bartender returned with our drinks. I stopped myself from making an imprudent remark and instead sipped the cranberry tonic and looked around for some peanuts. The bartender noticed my glance and skimmed a fresh dish in front of me.

  “Gus,” I said when I was crunching nuts, “we can’t use David Kaminsky this way. He’s a music teacher, for heaven’s sake. He’s not tabloid fodder.”

  “He’ll learn to love it.”

  “It feels dirty to me. Like exploiting Jenny Tuttle when she can’t protect herself. We’re smearing her reputation, and now his is—”

  “She didn’t have a reputation,” Gus shot back. “She was too boring.”

  I was starting to think Jenny wasn’t boring at all. She had led a quiet life, perhaps, but now I could see she had hidden a lot from the people who knew her best. She had hung out in a bar, listening to Bridget O’Halloran. It seemed she’d had a child—presumably out of wedlock. And Ox Oxenfeld had practically admitted Jenny was directing the new musical. My friend Nico had planted the idea that Jenny might have also written Bluebird of Happiness, and Krissie had almost confirmed it.

  Before I could argue with Gus, Baby Girl chose that moment to make one of her violent, flying trapeze moves, and I instinctively put one hand down on my belly. I used the other to grab the edge of the bar to keep myself from being rocked off the stool. “Ooh!”

  Terror flashed on Gus’s face. “What’s wrong?”

  I gasped. “It’s the baby.”

  He let out a curse and whipped around as if to flag down a passing ambulance.

  I quelled his panic by grasping his hand, laughing a little as I caught my breath. “No, I’m fine. Every time I drink something with sugar in it, she does a somersault. I shouldn’t have ordered the tonic.” Or the ice cream, I thought guiltily.

  He continued to look at my belly in shock. “Does it hurt?”

  “Of course not. It’s just startling. Here.” Impulsively, I guided his hand to my baby bump just in time for Baby Girl to give him a solid Abruzzo kick.

  He pulled away immediately, holding his hand in midair as if to allow germs to drip from it. “Good God, Nora, that’s disgusting.”

  “It’s not disgusting; it’s natural,” I said. “Don’t you have any urge to have a family of your own?”

  “To procreate? Seed the world with more Hardwickes? As if there aren’t enough?” He slugged back some of his scotch. “Of course not.”

  “Can you tell me what’s really going on with you?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me. “In addition to running the Intelligencer, are you really tending to Hardwicke family business? Is that where your future is?”

  He swallowed more scotch and shook his head, refusing to answer.

  “Nobody at the Intelligencer believes you’d actually leave us to ourselves for a whole month just to go bicycling. You went home to strategize with your father.”

  Gus still didn’t meet my eye but let his gaze roam around the bar, taking in the scene for the first time since he’d arrived and perhaps deciding how much he could trust me. “My father called a war council for me and my siblings. He wants us all at battle stations for a big media buy.”

  “The one here in Philadelphia?”

  “That, and others.”

  “Such a story would blow Jenny Tuttle off the front pages.”

  Gus gathered his composure and said, “For reasons I’ll get to in a moment, I’ll trust you not to repeat any of what I’m about to say. Yes, he’s expanding the empire. Naturally, my siblings and I are vying for top honors—a division of our own, perhaps. And an opportunity to become the capo dei capi when our father is gone. That’s what’s really at stake. And none of us are patient about waiting around for a chance to steer the big ship. I have two capable brothers and two very daunting sisters, all of whom would be better chief executives than me, according to my father. I’d like to prove him wrong by making this Philadelphia deal happen.”

  He talked about his father’s vast holdings as if they were pieces of a particularly delicious pie. But I wondered how much influence all those radio stations, television networks and newspapers added up to. Whoever owned them would be empowered with a lot of information and could choose how it should be presented to the whole world.

  Was Gus the right person to control worldwide communication?

  Gus had begun to frown with puzzlement at our surroundings. “I’m doing my damnedest to make this bloody buyout happen. You, by the way, probably know half of the Philadelphians in the playbook. They’re all as old as Thomas Jefferson, and just as prickly. What kind of party is this, exactly?”

  I understood more than what he was saying. The ne’er-do-well son had decided to ha
ng up his surfboard to become a leader within the powerful family corporation. To me, it was a familiar story. Except in Michael’s case, getting into the family business wasn’t something he particularly wanted.

  “This party?” I said. “It’s a fund-raiser. I can see how badly you want to be a part of the family business. I hope you succeed.”

  “Do you really care?” He turned back to me.

  “I’m just curious,” I replied calmly. “You seem to be concerned about your father’s opinion of you.”

  He studied my baby bump with less distaste than before. “I’ll admit my behavior would give a Freudian analyst a field day. I’m aware of my subliminal motives. Which brings me to the personal matter I mentioned.”

  “Yes?”

  He hesitated.

  “Gus?”

  “It’s about my negotiations with the Thomas Jeffersons.”

  “Oh?”

  Still he hesitated. “May I touch that again?” He put out his hand uncertainly.

  I felt as if we were on the brink of friendship. So I allowed him to touch me, even guiding his long fingers to the spot where Baby Girl was still rhythmically nudging me from the inside, perhaps encouraging me to quit while I was ahead where Gus was concerned.

  He and I sat in silence for a minute, sharing a funny sort of pause that I optimistically decided to interpret as a new phase.

  He pulled his hand away and took another drink. “It’s still disgusting.”

  I laughed. And asked, “Do you need help with your Thomas Jeffersons?”

  “Yes.”

  I appreciated his honesty. “What can I do?”

  “In a sense, you already have. But it’s time I came clean.”

  Just then Elle bebopped over to us, holding a cocktail and enjoying the music. “Nora, this must be your baby daddy. Hi, I’m Elle. What do you like most about becoming a father?”